Pocket Guide to Northern Ireland - Notes

Source:A Pocket Guide to Northern Ireland [.mobi (Kindle), .epub (iPad, etc.)]
Author:War and Navy Departments, Washington, D.C.
Date:1943

[1] Belfast was bombed by the Germans in April and May 1941. For the fullest account of the Belfast Blitz, see Brian Barton, The Belfast Blitz: The City in the War Years (Belfast, 2015). This book also provides interesting detail about American servicemen in Northern Ireland during the war.

[2] The English Reformation (and the break with Rome) began in the 1530s—in other words, in the sixteenth century rather than the fifteenth century.

[3] The Battle of the Boyne took place on 1 July 1690 (Old Style, or Julian Calendar) but is celebrated now on 12 July by the Gregorian Calendar.

[4] Winston Churchill thought that three-quarters of the people of southern Ireland were sympathetic to the Allied cause but he also recognised the existence of an ‘implacable malignant minority’ which was not. Anthony J. Jordan, Churchill, A Founder of Modern Ireland (Westport, 1996), 131.

[5] The Germans failed to grasp the scale of their opportunity by placing too much faith in the IRA. Sir John Maffey, the British representative in Dublin during the war, contended: ‘If the Germans had left politics alone and been content to operate an underground network of agents for espionage in Eire, there is no doubt Eire neutrality would have afforded immense possibilities.’ Paul Bew interprets this as meaning ‘the Germans should have worked with the Anglophobia of large sections of the ruling party and the Irish elites; by pitching their tent with the underground subversives of the IRA, the Germans missed their main opportunity. Paul Bew, Churchill and Ireland (Oxford, 2016), 153–4.

[6] From Lough Foyle to Carlingford Lough the Irish border is 310 miles long.

[7] A.E.F. was the acronym for the American Expeditionary Force.

Yanks: British Views on America during the Second World War

This book comprises a selection of articles from the (British) Army Bureau of Current Affairs' WAR and CURRENT AFFAIRS pamphlets, all relating to America and, more particularly, to the relationship between the British and Americans during the Second World War.

"Our enemies are trying to make trouble between the British and the Americans during the war; they are certain to try it after they have been defeated, in the hope of escaping once more from the consequences of their crimes against humanity. It is our business to understand and work with the United States now and in peace-time; that means for us all at least to like and understand the Americans we meet."

ISBN: 978-1910375518